Chapter 614 Infection
Boss, senior colleague, investor, competitor—and he even took away Luo's spine.
The face that appeared on the coffee table showed a thoughtful expression. After several seconds, Yu Sheng's voice broke the silence: "It sounds like the composition is quite complicated."
"...It is quite complicated; this is a complicated place."
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows: "But judging from the atmosphere here and your attitude, I think these identities can be packaged together and simply referred to as your enemies, right?"
Luo also raised his eyebrows, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded: "That seems to make sense too."
"Do we need to kill him?" Yu Sheng asked, somewhat curious.
“It’s not easy,” Luo thought seriously for a moment and shook his head slightly. “The one that came over today is definitely not his real body. Although he has created a fierce appearance for himself, Old Joe is actually more afraid of death than anyone else. As far as I know, he has been in dire straits more than once. He was even set up in a trap and his shuttle was blown up once. But he always managed to reappear in front of outsiders the next day unharmed and then take revenge in the most cruel way. He has never admitted it directly, but I suspect that he has created a lot of robot avatars for himself. The one that is always showing his face in public is just a shell.”
Yu Sheng began to think about it seriously.
“That might take a while,” he said thoughtfully, his gaze falling on Luo again. “And I noticed that as soon as you arrived, you contacted this guy named Old Joe… Your goal isn’t just to simply kill him, is it? You suspect that those unusual records on the Blackrock Space Station are related to him?”
Luo's eyes changed slightly, and his tone became serious: "I have more than one suspect, but now I am almost certain that he is at least involved in this matter."
"How can you tell? Because he took over your business and is the primary beneficiary?"
“It all started with how readily he accepted my ‘invitation’ and rushed to the meeting place I arranged in person,” Luo patiently explained. There were some details that only she could understand, and she knew that her new boss did not understand the complex “interpersonal relationships” within the Black Dot Group. “The Black Dot Group is a brutally competitive place. No one really cares about a ‘colleague’ who has suffered a major failure and is visibly losing his value. Besides, as you said, he also benefited from my failure by taking over the mines and starport facilities I left behind.”
"Based on my understanding of Old Joe, his most normal course of action at this time would be to stall for time with me, trying to find out my true situation while simultaneously revealing the news of my return to the Dark Current Starfield to all my competitors. Given his intelligence network, he must already know that I was once in the hands of the Secret Service. Even if he didn't know, he could create enough evidence to kick me while I was down, ensuring that I had no chance to come back and shake the part of the benefits he had already taken."
Yu Sheng thought for a moment: "So, the reason he accepted your invitation so hastily and came to see you is because..."
“He was very surprised that I came back alive. It was completely outside of his ‘plan’ so much that he had to come and see for himself what was going on.”
Luo paused for a moment, then continued thoughtfully, "Of course, that reason alone is not enough. Old Joe's personal visit only proves that he was surprised by my survival. What really makes me suspect that he is involved in this matter is the terms of the deal he proposed to me."
Yu Sheng: "Oh, you want your research data, right? And the exchange is to vouch for you, help you get back to Black Point Group, and give you a lab or something..."
“It’s all a ruse, I don’t believe his promises,” Luo shook his head. “There’s only one thing he’s telling the truth about, and that is that he wants my research data from the past few years. When he made that request, the temperature of a heat dissipation grid on the right side of his chest rose by 0.2 degrees Celsius—this matter is of great importance to him.”
"In fact, if he didn't have some reservations about me, given Old Joe's personality, he probably wouldn't have gone to such lengths. He would have found a way to capture me and put me on his spaceship, cut open my brain in the lab, and directly extract and analyze my electronic brain. He always does that to those defeated competitors."
“Your company culture is a bit too wild, I’m serious,” Yu Sheng said with a smirk. “What else? What else have you noticed?”
“…He was in a hurry,” Luo hesitated for a moment, then frowned and said, “or rather, a little too hasty—he didn’t need to make his purpose so obvious. He came straight over and brought up the research data to me the first time we met. That would definitely arouse my suspicion. He’s not stupid; he couldn’t possibly not have thought of that.”
“Maybe he doesn’t care about your suspicions—after all, you’ve already lost most of your wealth, lost your identity in the Black Spot Group, and are still burdened with suspicions of being captured by the Secret Service and being out of contact for a long time. In his understanding, you should be considered to have reached the end of your road,” Yu Sheng analyzed seriously. “He keeps emphasizing that he is your last resort in the Black Spot Group, which should be a reminder to you not to have any unrealistic expectations.”
Luo frowned: "Perhaps. Arrogance is also a characteristic of his personality, not to mention that he has been quite unhappy with me in recent years."
"You don't like me? Why?"
"...Can you accept that one day the experimental animals you keep in cages might suddenly break free of their chains, not only run outside and gain an identity, but also climb step by step to the same level as you, obtain the same resources as you, and talk to you face to face as equals?"
Yu Sheng: "Why not? It's so much fun!"
"?"
Luo stared wide-eyed at the face on the table as if she had seen a ghost.
Yu Sheng didn't pay any attention and continued muttering, "You know Hu Li raised two chickens? She initially kept them as reserve food, named Boiled Chicken and Salt-Baked Chicken, but now the three of them are practically sisters. I overheard them secretly chatting the other day, saying they can't continue cultivating anymore, or they'll have to go out to work... Hey, now that you mention it, should I find them some jobs...?"
Luo continued to stare wide-eyed at the face on the table.
This time, Yu Sheng could no longer pretend he didn't see anything: "Why are you looking at me?"
Luo pursed his lips and suddenly realized that he had always been a conservative. In a sense, the new boss in front of him could be considered a Chaotic Saint Body even in the most chaotic place in the Dark Current Starfield. His chaos had developed in a completely different direction, to the point that both the righteous and evil factions might find him somewhat human.
What's even more terrifying is that Baili Qing, with her iron-faced expression, didn't notice anything wrong with this person.
Not only Baili Qing, but also Mo Ran didn't seem to realize that there was anything wrong with the fact that he was on a living planet. There were also those children living in the alien valley, that monster that was used as a weapon by the Thunder Titan, and that ghost that tried to teach the alchemical golem to fly on a sword...
Luo's cold sweat dripped onto the coffee table. Yu Sheng's large face shifted several centimeters to the side. The new boss seemed to be seriously considering something when he suddenly blurted out, "There's another possibility: there's someone behind that 'Old Joe'."
Her train of thought, which was about to veer off course, was abruptly pulled back, and Luo hurriedly came to her senses: "You mean?"
"He's not in a hurry, but the people behind him might be. Or maybe he himself is caught in a bigger vortex. The earth-shattering explosion of your pioneer laboratory has brought many things that could have been hidden beneath the surface to the surface—so much so that he's rushing to you to ask for experimental data directly, even at the risk of arousing your suspicion, yet he doesn't dare to make a big fuss, at least not to break ties with you on the Grey Dwarf Star."
“We can speculate wildly about what your competitor has done that they dare not let the group know—colluding with the Chong Sheng Hermitage, transferring group assets, selling company secrets? Engaging in vicious competition with colleagues, ultimately leading to the destruction of a pioneer laboratory? These are all serious mistakes, but I still have good reason to suspect there’s something even more serious, after all… your corporate culture is really quite wild.”
Luo listened to Yu Sheng's serious analysis with a blank expression. Her surprised and earnest gaze made the face on the coffee table look a little awkward: "Why are you staring at me again? Tell me if there's anything wrong with my analysis."
“No, that’s not the problem,” Luo frowned. “Boss, I’m just… surprised. How did you come up with this idea? I mean, you live in the border region and haven’t had much dealings with people from the lawless areas. The Black Dot Group’s ways…”
“Is that hard to imagine? Anyone with a brain could figure that out,” Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow. “Oh, by the way, I’m also a writer…”
Luo: "...Huh?"
"I'm a writer, didn't you know?"
Luo's expression was strange: "I...I don't know. Should I know?"
“Oh, it’s normal that you don’t know. You can look it up online later,” Yu Sheng said casually, then abruptly steered the conversation back on track. “Let’s not talk about that for now. Anyway, I’m going to start keeping an eye on that ‘Old Joe’ from now on. His iron shell might just be an ‘avatar,’ but it looks pretty well-made. It’ll probably need to go back to its lair for maintenance sometime. I’ll infiltrate his body first. I’m glad you reminded me of that, otherwise I was planning to just unleash my power on him and I would have been exposed beforehand.”
Luo Yue found this explanation increasingly strange, and looked Yu Sheng up and down several times: "Why does this sound like a virus to you?"
Yu Sheng thought for a moment and said, "Then this should be called 'being sick'..."
Luo was stunned for a moment, clearly not quite understanding.
She's at least a dozen times worse than Irene when it comes to lame jokes and puns.
At the same time, above the orbit of the Grey Dwarf Star, a silver-white luxury shuttle was docked in the cabin of a frigate.
Inside the shuttle's cockpit, Old Joe didn't leave his seat, but remained in a state where he could disembark and take off at any time. At the same time, he connected to the escort ship's data link and checked the entire spaceship. Then, still not satisfied, he checked another nearby spaceship and the traffic logs of the entire nearby transportation system.
He scratched his shoulder in frustration.
Ever since he left that tower, or more precisely, ever since he left Luo's reception room, he had felt a certain... "itch" all over his body.
Steel doesn't itch. He was so unfamiliar with this feeling that came from his frail body that even after scratching it over and over again, he couldn't remember what the feeling was called. He just felt a deep-seated unease.
After scratching it a couple more times, Old Joe felt like he was about to discover something.
Now, all he needs to do is lift up a piece of armor plating on his body, and perhaps he can see the nerves and blood vessels that are slowly pulsating underneath.
But suddenly, the strange discomfort and unpleasantness disappeared.
Old Joe stopped scratching his shoulder, and his speaker crackled twice. His last bit of doubt turned into a short current in the logic chip and dissipated in the brief noise.
The itching has stopped.
Old Joe relaxed.
Yu Sheng's face slowly faded from his hard, steel-like skull.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com